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Vista backup shadow copy error 0x8004230F

microsoft.public.windows.vista.performance maintenance

I have Vista's automatic backup feature set to do an incremental backup
each evening at 9 pm, when I am not usually using the machine. However,
about one time in 3 it fails with an "unexpected error" as above, in the
"creating shadow copy" stage.
I am aware that a re-boot will fix this and allow backup to run.
However, I already shut down my computer every night so am unwilling to
do an additional restart each evening shortly before the backup is due
to run.
Is there any way to resolve or prevent this error without restarting
the computer?
I've tried re-starting the VSS service after the failure and then
re-trying the backup, but it always fails with the same error and will
not run again until the machine has been restarted.

Did you try looking in the error log?
Search on the error code wasn't very helpful as everyone reboots to fix
it.

It's been my experience that backup software is the least likely to
work as expected. Esp. stuff that comes with the OS or HD. Try a 3rd
party program. Do research like going to the support forums for the
particular products and see which ones seem to work well on
configurations closest to what you have. You should get a good idea
after one or two days of looking around. The System Snapshot type
programs are getting cheaper. You should be able to find something good
under $50.